BY AARON SAGERS
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| Courtesy IMDB.com |
Pull back the curtain on much of today’s movie magic and you’re likely to find the wizard is visual effects master Joe Letteri.
The resume of Letteri’s effects work reads like a list of some the most popular, and biggest banking, films of the last 20 years:
The Abyss;
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country;
Jurassic Park (recently released on Blu-ray); the 1997 special edition of
Star Wars;
The Lord of the Rings (
The Two Towers and
The Return of the King); the highest grossing film ever,
Avatar. Even films that look great but aren’t remembered as great films, like
Van Helsing,
X-Men: The Last Stand and 2005’s
King Kong survive because of his talents.
The strength of Letteri’s work isn’t just that he brings the visions of directors Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson and James Cameron to life, but his creations impress the movie biz’ toughest boss, the audience, and has earned him five Oscars.
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| Courtesy 20th Century Fox |
But Letteri keeps upping his game to keep all parties happy. In 2011, he created the super intelligent apes of
Rise of the Planet of the Apes (now out on DVD and Blu-ray), a movie that was initially met with skepticism by fans until that initial trailer showed off the expressive eyes of Caesar – which was courtesy of Letteri. He is also behind the performance capture effects in Spielberg and Jackson’s
The Adventures of Tintin and is currently at work on
The Hobbit series, the first installment of which is one of the most anticipated films of 2012. Moreover, it's a good bet that
Apes will net Letteri another Oscar nod for best visual effects.
Letteri spoke with us about
Apes,
Tintin and
The Hobbit – as well as some of his past work - and opened up about the relationship between technology and actors (after the jump).
